Yes, it is crazy that someone has died over this.

We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. [Orwell]

I accept that, but the circumstances are the circumstances(as someone once said)
The South has never surrendered its identity or sense of pride. It does have its dark side and the decision to remove the statues was always going to bring the worst out in some people.
Was a democratic decision in the name of political correctness worth people's lives?

Read what the Confederate Vice President said. The war was about slavery, and not just the money from it, as it fundamentally related to the place and role of slaves within Southern society and identity. The leaders of the slaves states were extremely clear on this in what they said and what they wrote and did.

Second, stop using a false analogy. The fact most southerners did not own slaves is irrelevant as they were largely conscripted: it would be like saying the average German soldier was not a NAZI so the war was not about NAZI ideology. That's just silly.

Many white Southerners have attempted, for far more than a century, to airbrush their own history by pretending the war was not about slavery. Clearly, they have been successful.

As for air brushing history, who precisely is doing that? Those pretending the symbols have nothing to do with the main cause of the Civil War, i.e. slavery, or those pointing out it was about time there was a debate about whether such symbols should be acceptable in a modern society.

I would have them removed and placed in museums with interpretation or, it is felt they should stay where they are, provided with an interpretive plaque.

And by the way, there was a vote just as there has been elsewhere. Most of the prominent cases have been a democratically elected official exercising the will of the public.

By the way, here are the key parts of the Confederate Vice President's speech: "The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. ... The prevailing ideas entertained by him [Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. ... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”

Edited by NickinOX (16 Aug 2017 12.11pm)

If you come to a fork in the road, take it.

I think its kind of damning that the people who seem to be saying that, also tend to be backed by groups for who race and racial supremacy is very important.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

basically this.

La la la your mum

Local councils are chosen by local people to decide such things. That is what representative democracy is all about. What you are suggesting is already what happens.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.